The invention relates to an improved cereal preparation process and apparatus. In particular, the invention provides an apparatus that can be utilized in a modified cereal process sequence and manipulation to efficiently apply antioxidant and/or other useful minor ingredient(s) for particulate materials, e.g., ready-to-eat cereal products or half products. The invention provides efficiencies in equipment and processing and improves product handling.
Breakfast cereals, as they are sometimes called, have achieved such popularity with consumers that they are no longer served just at breakfast time. Also known as ready-to-eat cereals, they are enjoyed with milk or dry as between meal or evening snacks. They are nutritious, economical and flavorful. However, like most grain-based foods, they do become stale with storage, after a time losing a toasty freshness that is associated with the freshest products. Also, with aging, oils present in the grain or added for flavor or texture are subject to oxidation. This latter effect, lipid oxidation, can affect foods containing fats and oils in a variety of ways. The development of rancid odors and off flavors are the most obvious changes. But, color changes, loss of flavor volatiles, and nutritive changes such as destruction of fat-soluble vitamins and caloric reduction can also occur.
Lipid oxidation occurs when fat molecules, activated by catalyzing agent such as heat, light or other factor, react with oxygen to form peroxides. The peroxides then break down to organic compounds such as aldehydes, ketones, acids, alcohols, etc., resulting in off odors and flavors often associated with rancidity. Once initiated, oxidation proceeds at increasingly greater rates with factors such as heat, ultraviolet light, trace metals, and pigments further catalyzing or promoting oxidation.
This oxidation typically causes the production of undesirable flavors and, in advanced cases, odors which fill the head space gas of the package and are released upon opening. This strongly detracts from the appeal of the cereal. To avoid this, the art has utilized antioxidants, applied at various processing stages.
In the preparation of a typical ready-to-eat breakfast cereal, the starting grain-based formulation is cooked, formed and toasted or otherwise finish cooked to eliminate raw flavor notes and develop fully-cooked grain flavors. Following this processing, it is typical to collect the resulting incomplete cereal, sometimes referred to as a half product or intermediate product, in a surge hopper or wheeled tote to await packaging or further processing. When the product is a simple flake, such as corn flake, no added processing would normally be necessary if antioxidant or vitamins were not to be added. However, where the addition of one of these or other minor additives is desired, there must be another processing step.
Application of various antioxidants to dry cereal products has been accomplished in a number of ways depending on the type of cereal product, production facilities available, and the type of antioxidant. The method of addition must provide complete and uniform application of the antioxidant on the cereal product to provide maximum effectiveness.
Antioxidants have been added in the past by a variety of means. For example, they have been sprayed onto cereals as they are coated with other ingredients. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,685, Lyall, et al, applies an antioxidant as part of an emulsion of an oil and sugar solution in a coating reel or drum. In other cases, the antioxidant has been applied as part of an oil coating or separately, in a similar coating device which tends to present a large surface area for coating and provides good mixing. In other prior art arrangements, minor ingredients have been sprayed onto cereal products in auger devices and on belts. However, when done as part of the final stage in cereal preparation, the cereal product can be left exposed to the air, warm and unprotected from oxidation, for periods sufficient for some oxidation of oils present to occur. And, when done as a separate processing step, additional equipment will be required and costs of equipment, maintenance and space can be increased.
In other cases antioxidants have been applied by direct addition by adding the antioxidant at an early processing stage into an ingredient or blending it with the ingredients as they are being mixed. It has also been applied to packaging such as waxed liners for cereal cartons, polyethylene, or paperboard. The antioxidant applied in this latter manner will vaporize from the package and diffuse throughout the cereal product providing protection. Certain packaging materials are also subject to oxidation and may benefit from the presence of antioxidants. While effective for some products, these latter two methods have disadvantages for others.
There remains a need for a simple and efficient manner for applying minor ingredients, like antioxidants and vitamin mixes, to cereal products at an appropriate place in the cereal preparation process. In particular, there remains a need for an improved cereal preparation process and apparatus, which enables application of antioxidants and other minor ingredients to provide efficiencies in equipment and processing and improve intermediate product handling.